Monsters of Rock was a hard rock and heavy metal music festival. It was originally held annually in Castle Donington, England, from 1980 to 1996, taking place every year except 1989 and 1993. It later branched into other locations such as the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Sweden, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the United States, and Russia.
History
In 1980, promoter Paul Loasby, along with Maurice Jones, planned a one-day festival dedicated specifically for bands within the hard rock and heavy metal genre. Loasby was an established and successful promoter working that year on the Rainbow UK tour and penned the festival as the final show of the tour for the band to headline. Jones knew the owner of the Donington Park race track, Tom Wheatcroft, located next to the village of Castle Donington in Leicestershire, England, and the site was chosen to host the event.[1]
(A year earlier, promoter Bill Graham’s July 1979 Day on the Green Festival at Oakland Coliseum in California was also dubbed "The Monsters of Rock" show. This concert featured Aerosmith, Ted Nugent and AC/DC.)
Donington Park was unknown as a major location but its location in the East Midlands next to the M1 and A42 allowed for better transportation to the site from around the country. Additionally, the site ground level sloped which allowed for a better viewing for the audience throughout the site.
The first Monsters of Rock line-up consisted of a mix of British and international bands. The event was a success with 35,000 heavy metal fans attending. Although only conceived as a one-off event, it was mentioned on the day the idea that the festival will return the following year and the first edition birthed what would become a regular festival for the next 15 years, becoming synonymous as a Mecca for fans of the genre and further establishing the Midlands as the home of heavy metal.[2]
Over the years, the attendance continued to grow, reaching 107,000 in 1988–where two fans died during the Guns N' Roses set. The blame was initially accounted to the large size of the crowd and a rush forward during the band's set. But it was officially declared that the cause was laid on the weather, causing muddy and wet conditions on the sloping ground. As a result, the festival did not take place in 1989, and it was replaced that year by a two-day festival similar to Monsters of Rock, the Moscow Music Peace Festival in Soviet Union, which included performances by several Monsters of Rock veterans Bon Jovi, Ozzy Osbourne, Mötley Crüe and Scorpions.[3] Monsters of Rock returned the year after with a limitation to the crowd of 75,000.[4]
The festival had been held in parallel in West Germany from 1983 to 1991. In 1984 and 1986 the festival branched into Sweden. In 1988, the festival occurred for the first time in France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. It was held as a one-time event in 1991 in Russia (one of the largest concerts of all time, with an estimated audience of over 1.6 million[citation needed]), Poland, Belgium, Hungary. In 1994, the festival was exported overseas to Chile, Argentina and Brazil.
The Monsters of Rock festival continued on as the premier hard rock and heavy metal event in Great Britain in the 1990s but started to fall upon hard times as heavy metal became less popular, with another cancellation in 1993 due to being unable to find a strong enough headliner. In 1995 the festival found itself in a similar situation until Metallica agreed to play with the condition of the band having control over the event and naming it "Escape from the Studio". In 1996 Ozzy Osbourne and KISS co-headlined the festival and although there were plans to extend the festival into a two-day event in 1997, the promoters once again found themselves in a struggle for headliners and the event was cancelled and discontinued.
Donington Park remained event-less until 2001 when the Rock and Blues Festival and Stereophonics held events at the site. In 2002 the Ozzfest tour returned to the UK using Donington Park as their only British event and the following year Live Nation picked up the reins as Monsters of Rock's successor in the name of Download Festival. An outstanding success from the offset, the festival continues to this day having increased to a three-day event with five stages, though as of 2008 the event has been relegated outside of the track.
In 2012 Harlan Hendrickson & Monsters of Rock Worldwide partnered with Larry Morand and Mike London to launch the inaugural Monsters Of Rock Cruise.
Line-ups
(Note: Line-ups in this section are for the events held in the United Kingdom. They are listed with the headlining band first, followed by the reverse order of appearance by the other bands.)
Saxon (released as the semi-official live album Donington: The Live Tracks [sic]. "I still meet people," noted Biff Byford, "that come up and tell me about their own little twist on the day: 'Just as you started 747 (Strangers In The Night), a plane came over.' Of course, we wrote a song about [the event]: And the Bands Played On."[5])
Twisted Sister (Police asked Dee Snider to limit his F-word usage to sixteen. Asked subsequently why he exceeded that limit, he explained he "hadn't realised that 'motherfuckers' would be included".)[7]
KISS ("It wasn't Kiss at its very best," recalled Paul Stanley. "We were on during the day, and we didn't even have our standard show at that point when we were out of makeup. But, in some ways, Donington is a great type of boot camp, because you can't depend upon anything other than guts and glory to make something work."[12])
18 August 1990 (attendance: 72,000)
The entire 1990 festival was simultaneously broadcast live on BBC Radio 1, which had previously recorded festivals for later broadcast.
4 June 1994 (another festival broadcast live; highlights were transmitted in 1995 and 1996) (attendance: 56,000).
This was the first year that two stages were used. Readers of Kerrang! magazine were invited to vote on bands to appear at the festival. Extreme easily won their place on the bill but were bottled for much of their set.
26 August 1995 (attendance: 60,000)
1995 was not billed as 'Monsters of Rock' but as 'Escape from the Studio', owing to Metallica headlining on a break from recording the Load album – making them the first band to play the festival four times (while Therapy? became the first to play in consecutive years). Prior to the show, reverend Brian Whitehead held a special service at the Castle Donington village's St Edward church, to combat the "occult forces" that he feared would be unleashed by the event, especially White Zombie.[15]
Metallica (Their fourth appearance and only appearance as headliner)
Motörhead (Due to illness, Lemmy Kilmister couldn't perform. Remaining members Phil Campbell and Mikkey Dee jammed a few Motörhead songs with musicians from Sepultura).
The 1986 appearance by Bad News was featured in the TV mockumentary More Bad News.
In 1993, the Monsters of Rock radio show debuted. Harlan Hendrickson, host and creator of the Monsters of Rock, broadcasts from the rock radio station WRIF in Detroit. The Monsters of Rock is currently syndicated nationally/internationally through United Stations Radio Networks where it currently airs in over 60 markets in the United States alone. The program currently holds the number-one or number-two slots among males 25–54 on the majority of stations that carry it. Guests on the show have included of AC/DC, Kiss, Van Halen, Motörhead, Cinderella, Ozzy Osbourne, Bon Jovi, Cheap Trick, Mötley Crüe, Ratt, Slayer and Poison.
In the 2005 Half Man Half Biscuit song "Mate of the Bloke" on their album Achtung Bono, the protagonist sings of legal action taken against him by More O'Ferrall for spraying the legend "in church hall if wet" onto a billboard for Monsters of Rock.
In 2012, Harlan Hendrickson teamed up with Larry Morand and Mike London to launch the "Monsters of Rock Cruise",[21] which is a multi day music cruise celebrating the Castle Donington festival. Artists such as Saxon, UFO, Cinderella, Tesla, The Quireboys and others from the original festival have been featured on the cruise.[citation needed]
^from a fax sent by concert promoters MCP to Guinness Publishing on 18 April 1997, providing background information for the publisher's book Rockopedia
^from a fax sent by concert promoters MCP to Guinness Publishing on 18 April 1997, providing background information for the publisher's book Rockopedia
^Brannigan, Paul (July 2015). "Live! – Kiss". Classic Rock. No. 211. p. 112.
^from a fax sent by concert promoters MCP to Guinness Publishing on 18 April 1997, providing background information for the publisher's book Rockopedia
